Nurse education today
-
Nurse education today · Jul 2000
ReviewRedressing the power and effect of significance. A new approach to an old problem: teaching statistics to nursing students.
Many barriers to learning are present when teaching research methods. Developing, within students of nursing, the skills of reading and interpreting research reports is vital if the profession is to contribute to the general aim of achieving a sound basis for all health care interventions. This paper overviews the current move toward evidence based practice, the challenges that are present when teaching research to nursing students and offers an approach to teaching quantitative research that will help students of nursing to understand the key concepts that form the basis of inferential statistics. ⋯ Students, we argue, must be able to understand the concept of effect size. We consider this to be a foundational concept that will help to develop a firmer grasp of the decision making processes involved in hypothesis testing. Such an approach will form a more logical approach to teaching this subject and will allow for the use of real world examples to form the basis of learning.
-
Nurse education today · Jul 2000
Quality assurance for nursing and midwifery education: an analysis of the approach in England.
The main purpose of this paper is to discuss conceptual and policy developments for external quality assurance for nurse and midwifery education in England. The current framework was implemented in the academic year 1998/99, and is the subject of a three year evaluation commissioned by the English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery & Health Visiting (ENB). The methods which are being used to evaluate the quality assurance arrangements will be discussed within the context of nursing and midwifery education and practice. ⋯ It follows that the quality assurance processes should have the capacity to demonstrate the extent to which professional education meets this aim. This paper will discuss this issue, with particular emphasis on the collaborative review process which is being undertaken by the Quality Assurance Agency and the statutory body for nursing, midwifery and health visiting education. The paper concludes with a discussion of the changes proposed by the government for nursing and midwifery education, and considers the potential impact for quality assurance of health care education.